Restaurant Game

We have a hard time determining where to eat as a family. It is our form of entertainment on the weekends. However, we are very routine, and we get sick of eating the same thing over and over. One day, it was taking so long to decide where we were going to go, that we were walking the very thin line of whether we waited too long and J would have a disastrous meltdown. I decided that we were going to play restaurant at home. I'd be the hostess, waitress, and chef. I printed J a menu with a coloring page taken from the internet.

As part of the menu, I gave J a few choices. He had to select one of each group: protein, side/veggies, drink. His favorite menus at restaurants have pictures of the food, so I copied that for our menu. He and his daddy left the house and came in like they were entering the restaurant. I seated them and gave them the menu. J circled what he wanted to eat. I made it and served it.

Kids love to pretend! There's plenty of science in this game too. We talked about nutrition and a balanced meal, along with good choices to help our bodies grow big and strong (not just big). The menu activities can incorporate math games, ie. connect the dots, identifying patterns, etc. J loved this quick thrown together idea that it has become part of our normal week. Yesterday, he requested that he was the waiter and chef. Of course, I supervised him and suggested something that he can do with minimal help (chicken salad sandwiches). He mixed our canned chicken, which I opened, with 3 spoons of light mayonnaise and some cucumber pieces. We calculated how many pieces of bread we needed if mommy, daddy, and J all needed 2 slices each for their sandwiches. He also decided carrots would pair well with the sandwiches. This game also taught J that a lot goes into bringing food to the table and we should be respectful during dinner time.

I can't wait to add more to our game of restaurant. I think as he gets older, we'll start to associate a cost of dining at a restaurant and add money math to the game. ::squeal::

Static Electricity

I love simple, unexpected science lessons. It was a beautiful day which made for perfect static electricity hair when playing at the park. All he had to do to get the crazy hair was slide down the tunnel slide. Then he grounded himself by jumping off the slide onto the ground or shocking himself on a slide bolt to get his hair back to normal.

Fun quote: J saw the picture and stated, "I look like a puffer fish!"

Science Saturday: Squishy Circuits

We had a successful Science Saturday for April! Thanks to everyone who attended.

Preparation for fun:

I made 4 batches of conductive dough: purple (left over from our trial-run of Squishy Circuits), blue, green, and yellow. I also made 3 batches of the insulating dough, without color. Per Squishy Circuits recommendation, I purchased small Safety Glasses from Amazon (affiliate link).

I bought out two local Radio Shack's inventory for buzzers and vibrating motors to end up with 5 of each. These were great because they already had wires on them. Less work for me!

I bought 10 of the 4-AA battery holder with snap connector from Fry's with the 9-volt snap connector. This was also great since I didn't have to solder wires, and I can remove the snaps and store the battery packs without worrying about shorts.

John and I crimped terminals (not exactly what we used, but think something like this) onto each wire. This allowed greater surface area contact for the connections. We also hot glued where the wire connected to the crimped plastic to reduce the pull-out possibilities (kids are hard on things). We also hot glued the joints of the LEDs after we broke one during our trial-run.

All of this preparation paid off. We didn't break the legs of any LED and no wire was pulled out from the crimper. Since everything survived, I now have a classroom set of small electrical components.

The table set-up:

I put down a plastic disposable tablecloth. This helped keep the play dough from acquiring dirt and other park related gross things. Safety glasses were required to participate (provided by us).

My favorite find from cleaning out my parent's house a few weeks ago was this drawer set, which is perfect for electrical components (previous use: Barbie's shoe sorter). Those are original stickers my sister and I put on in the 1980s. It just screams science fun!

Reminder about circuits and shorts:

The battery does not liked to be plugged into the same piece of play dough. There needs to be space or insulative dough between at least two separate conductive dough pieces.

We briefed everyone on "shorts" and how to prevent them. I also made wearing the safety glasses mandatory. We, thankfully, didn't have any shorts.

Totally awesome creations:

I did a happy face (the "hot dog" circuitry is on the underside and the wires stick through the insulative dough to the conductive dough underneath):

Doggy wagging his tail, a vibrating motor (by my husband, John- note the tail flying off at the end):

A few butterflies:

A rocket ship:

An airplane:

A train (that whistled):

Flowers:

Problems we encountered:

The biggest problem was that the dough dried out as we were playing and wasn't conducting well. Reforming/reworking the dough or switching the connector locations solved this problem.

The sunlight drowned out the LED lights, but if we cupped our hands over the play dough circuit, creating shade, the lights burned bright.

During the experiment, we shorted 2 LEDs. Lesson learned: don't connect the LEDs directly to the battery wires. They need resistance which is provided through the play dough.

Please note that due to crazy May scheduling, we will not hold a Science Saturday. We are tentatively thinking about repeating Stomp Rockets for June, with a date TBD.

Roller Coasters with the 4-5 year olds

I mentioned earlier in the week that I started a new birthday tradition of volunteering in the classroom. Marble Roller Coasters is my all time favorite lesson, so I thought the bigger kids at J's school would have fun with it. They did!

The main takeaway of the lesson was classifying if they had too much or too little energy. I did a small demonstration where I told them about potential energy and how things up high potentially fall down. If something is close to the ground, it doesn't have a lot of energy. If it's way up high, it has a lot of energy.

With that guidance, everyone started their roller coasters up high.

We also learned that there wasn't enough energy for the marble to make it all the way back up the track if the track was shaped like a "U".

They also learned if their drop was too steep, the marble would have too much energy and jump the track. They had to modify where they started the marble or the angle of the drop in order to keep the marble on the track because nobody wants to be on a roller coaster that jumps the track. That would be scary!

Most groups made roller coaster drops, some as long as half the length of the room. One group made a loop with their roller coaster.

Some groups crisscrossed their tracks with other groups.

All in all, the kids had a great time. I consider my birthday lesson a success!

He's holding up two fingers

J requested to look through old pictures this evening. We came across this one where he's flashing the #2 before he was even 2 months old!

I'd like to say he's been good at math since the beginning, but this was just a random "good timing" photo. However, he does love his numbers.